Craig Johnson - A Serpent's Tooth - A Walt Longmire Mystery

I remembered that the cot was against the center of the back wall, and I started crawling in that direction. The blasts of water were still prodding me forward, now hitting me in the ass, and all I could think of was how I was going to knock the damn hoses out of the volunteer firemen’s hands when and if I got out of there.

I could feel the leg of the low-slung cot and was amazed the aluminum hadn’t melted in the heat. I felt for the mattress and found the sopping blankets, my hand bumping against something that felt like a shoulder. I grabbed hold of it but couldn’t get a grip, so I gathered all the covers, yanked them toward me, and felt the fabric tear.

Going for broke, I shot both arms over the top and clamped them down like hooks. The cot collapsed, and a two-hundred-pound man slapped against my chest, and I fell backward. “Damn it to hell.”

I closed my mouth and just pulled his lifeless body along with me back toward the door. We were only a few leg-drags in that direction when I heard a cracking noise and saw part of the shed roof disengage and fall, taking a third of the joists with it, the sudden rush of air momentarily pulling the flames and smoke toward the other side, at which point I could see that the rafters on my side were in no better shape.

Grabbing the wet bundle that was Double Tough, I prepared for a mad dash through the doorway, into the hose streams and the parking lot. This hope was hammered as I watched the top beam disconnect from the back of the Quonset hut and slam down diagonally in front of me in a cascade of sparks, flame, burning wood, and tar paper.

I scrambled backward until my shoulders lodged against the skillet-hot ridged surface of one corner; I was trapped like a rat and yelling like a madman.

Double Tough was lying across my legs. The side of his head was badly burned, and I wasn’t even sure that the eye was still there. He wasn’t breathing, and all I could do was pull his body next to me and try to think fast.

I wasn’t sure what was still on the other side, but it had to be better than this.

I hoisted the two of us, shrugging Double Tough’s body against my chest again in a modified fireman’s carry, and prepared for the hunched dash to freedom. All I could think was that I couldn’t stop—no matter what happened, keep going.

I had pulled some of the soaked blankets over me for a little protection, but I couldn’t see because they covered my head. Suddenly it felt like the wall behind me was giving way. I half-expected the remainder of the ceiling to come crashing down and tottered forward still in hopes of finding a way out. About then two great weights slammed onto my shoulders, and the only thing I could think was that the roof had finally let go and the sixteen-inch centered rafters had landed on either side of my neck.

I struggled to pull free, but I could feel myself losing my balance and I fell backward, crashing into the exterior wall. The grip on my shoulders didn’t let up—something was dragging me. I held on to Double Tough’s body as I shot backward, but the smoke was invading the blankets at this height, my brain started to fog, and the grip on my shoulders felt like talons digging into my flesh.

This must have been what it was like to die—a giant messenger of the dead swooping down and carrying me along that hanging road to the camp beyond. The talons had to be from some giant owl, the only bird that eagles steered clear of.

His claws sunk deeper, and I felt the circulation cut off from my arms. I hit the hard ground and just lay there with the weight of the wet bedding and Double Tough’s body on top of me, trying to summon enough energy for another go. Not dead yet.

Suddenly, his body disappeared. I lifted my arms and tried to get hold of him, but there was nothing there. I flopped to my side and tried to pull the blankets off of me, but it was as if I were glued to them. Slowly I backpedaled out from under and finally slid my head clear.

I rolled over on my back and breathed, staring at the star-filled night and feeling the cold just starting to sink its teeth in. I felt around, but still couldn’t find his body anywhere nearby. It would appear that the giant owl, having given up on taking both of us, had dropped me and continued onto the camp of the dead with him alone. The hanging road was there, the thick strip of the Milky Way draped like a hammock from horizon to horizon in icy clarity.

I allowed my head to drop back onto the parking lot pavement and then rolled it the other way, finally seeing what had plucked my deputy and me from the burning building.

The giant owl was beating on Double Tough’s chest. I watched as my deputy’s head bounced against the asphalt. I reached out but couldn’t get to him. I yelled and shouted for the thing to go away, slapped my hand on the ground in an attempt to get his attention, but it ignored me and went back to tearing at Double Tough’s chest in some sort of ceremonial rite.

I raised my voice but could only croak out a warning that if I got my hands around the big owl’s neck he was going to rue the day he had decided to make birdseed out of us.

Finally the owl swiveled its head, shuddered, and took notice of me. I tried to sit up, but it pinned me to the ground. I coughed and choked up some of the soot from my throat and spat it to the side, then turned to grab hold of him in return.

The big bird fell to the side, seemingly as exhausted as I was. I still held on to the legs of the thing but then slowly realized that they were arms. It shook me loose and reached up to pull away its own wet, protective blanket that hung over its head, revealing Henry’s smudged and dirty face.

He sat there looking at me as I sank back to the pavement, but only for a moment, then turned and looked toward the fire, the wetness in his eyes reflecting the flames as they consumed the rest of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Substation.

I said something, but he wouldn’t look at me.

Feeling the weight of my head as it slipped sideways, I could see another set of eyes looking at me from a short distance away.

Double Tough.

I dragged myself across the asphalt through a couple of puddles and began to shake from the cold. My hand reached his face, the scorched glove touching his chin, but he didn’t blink.

12

I sat on the tailgate of my truck, sipped at a Styrofoam cup of coffee, and pulled the dry blanket a little closer around me, attempting to quell the constant shivering.

I watched as the Powder River Fire District volunteers recoiled their hoses and gathered their gear to beat a tired retreat back to the firehouse and their beds. The EMTs had loaded Double Tough into their van and had left.

Henry’s voice sounded distant. “One of the neighbors from across the street says he saw the light from inside but just thought it was the reflection from a wood-burning stove; the next time he looked, he said, the entire building was going up.”

I lowered the cup and looked at the pool of illumination from the dusk-to-dawn light on the other side of the parking lot, the halogen spilling onto the faded red Suburban, pink and unearthly. The truck sat there like some bashful ingénue at center stage, backed against a copse of fledgling aspens leaning in like a parted curtain.

I remembered how much better the thing had run after Double Tough had taken it under his mechanical wing; how numerous times when I had made the drive down to deliver paychecks, I would find his hillbilly ass under the hood of the thirty-year-old unit, reveling in the big-block, carbureted, dual-exhausted monstrosity.

“There were some other individuals at the periphery behind the sawhorses. I interviewed them, but none of them appeared to have seen anything.”

I remember Double Tough telling me he was from someplace back East, some hollow in the middle of the Appalachian mountains; about how he’d gotten a degree in geology or mineralogy or something. I thought about how I’d wished I’d listened more closely to his story.